I used to love my routine.

  The air always smelled like freshly watered grass—cool and earthy, even though the sprinklers worked overtime to keep it alive during the drought. The birds chirped in the same cheerful rhythm each morning, a gentle melody that you could hear all around the quiet streets like a familiar song. I’d step out of my apartment just after seven, take the elevator down past the glass atrium garden, and walk the narrow stone path to the station.

  The path was always freshly swept, not a single leaf out of place. The same two neighbors greeted me each morning. One stood at her planter box, watering her synthetic roses with practiced care. The other snipped at hedges that never actually grew. I’d nod, smile, keep walking. The wind always caught just right on the overpass—cool against my skin, brushing the collar of my lab coat.

  The train arrived at 7:14. It always did. Never a second early. Never a second late.

  My days never changed. Wake up. Shower. Eat. Walk to the train. Go to work. And I liked it that way. Or—I told myself I did.

  I worked in Agriculture—biological engineering, technically—but everyone just called it “growth science.” We didn’t farm like they used to back in the day. We engineered food in modular panels and sealed tanks, tailored down to the molecule. It was clean. Efficient. Predictable.

  People said our town was the cleanest in the district. Everyone smiled. Crime was nonexistent. The sky was always a pale, soft blue. The streets were lined with low, flowering hedges and humming with the quiet rhythm of life.

  It really was beautiful.

  So why did I feel so miserable?

  That ache began—at least, I think—during the first few months in the lab. A vague, persistent wrongness. It got more intense the longer I worked there.

  The job kept me busy. The town kept me safe.

  But there were mornings—like this one—where I’d walk the path to the station, everything nice and serene, and I’d feel something hollow take shape inside my chest. Like I was the only one hearing the birds.

  And once in a while, they missed a note.

  That was the day everything changed.

  As you know, our food production is always on the edge of sufficiency. It's a constant balancing act. As agro-bio engineers, Dr. Vellin and I did our best to keep the community fed. The process, in theory, was simple. Ever since most livestock went extinct, we’ve relied on cloned animals—just clones grown from clones , over and over again. But decades of replication degrade the source. Clones of clones of clones… eventually, things go wrong.

  We keep an indoor farm of these deteriorated strains, rows of living flesh suspended in nutrient vats. They grow fast. They're easy to process. And most people never ask where their food comes from. Meat is meat.

  My job was routine: monitor cell integrity, screen for harmful mutations, ensure nothing dangerous slipped into the food cycle. I've done the same process hundreds of times. But that day—something was different.

  I was testing a batch of lamb recently slaughtered. The first thing I noticed was the color—off, bruised, uneven. Still, I began the standard evaluation. But then, something overcame me. A sudden, irrational curiosity. Before I could stop myself, I tore off a small piece and tasted it. The flavor was foul—rancid and metallic—but it wasn’t the taste that hit me the hardest.

  It was the smell.

  A sudden, overpowering stench—something putrid and wrong. My chest tightened. My throat seized. And then the panic hit.

  My mouth dried up. My vision blurred, the lab lights strobing in and out like a failing memory. I dropped the sample tray, hands shaking. My mind was filling with images I didn’t recognize.

  Rot. Blood. Hunger. A cold hallway slick with something dark. Screams ringing in my ears. The smell of burning.

  I collapsed to the floor, screaming in agony. It felt like my skull was splitting open. My heart was racing so fast I thought it might stop entirely.

  Dr. Vellin rushed in almost instantly. I don’t remember what he said—only his voice, low and steady, trying to anchor me. He held me down and administered something—an animal-grade sedative we normally used on tissue hosts that resisted processing.

  The panic dulled. My vision faded. Then silence followed.

  The next thing I remember, I was in a hospital bed. The lights were too bright. My body was achey. And the birds outside the window were chirping the same song I’d heard every morning since I was a child.

  "Glad you're awake again."

  Dr. Vellin stepped into the room holding a hot cup of coffee. His voice was calm, familiar, somewhat warm. "You've been out since yesterday," he added, pulling up a stool beside my bed.

  I asked what had happened. He told me my stomach must've rejected the lamb sample immediately—triggering a fight-or-flight response. A freak allergic reaction, he said. Nothing more.

  I apologized, instinctively. Maybe I’d mishandled the sample. I’d broken protocol.

  Vellin waved it off. "It’s fine. We’ve already discarded that strain. The computer missed a mutation—could’ve been worse.”

  I apologized again, this time for tasting the sample. I’d been hungry, distracted. I shouldn’t have acted impulsively.

  He just laughed, patting my shoulder. “Go home. Get some rest.”

  A nurse arrived shortly after with a prescription—basic digestive stabilizers—and I was discharged. I felt relieved. Embarrassed, but grateful things hadn’t spiraled further.

  On the train ride home, I stared out the window, letting the rhythm of the tracks soothe my thoughts. I kept replaying the incident in my head—trying to convince myself it was nothing more than a mistake, a passing panic, a moment of weakness.

  So I didn’t notice the old man until he started chuckling.

  He was sitting directly across from me. Thin, grey, with sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes. His laugh was quiet but unsettling—like someone remembering a bad joke no one else could hear except him.

  I turned toward him. “Is something funny?”

  Before he could answer, the train lights flickered—and then died.

  Sudden darkness swallowed the car. Only the pale glow of the moon filtered in through the windows, casting everything in a cold, silver light.

  And the world had changed.

  The clean, white interior of the train was gone. Everything was rusted, corroded. The floor was covered in grime, and the windows were cracked and stained. A foul smell hung in the air—iron and mold.

  The train kept moving, but the sound had changed. A horrible, grinding screech—metal against metal—screamed through the cabin. It pierced into my skull, made my ears throb.

  I turned to the old man.

  He just kept chuckling, eyes never leaving mine.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked again, this time more forcefully.

  The lights snapped back on.

  I blinked and looked around. The car was clean again. Silent. Bright. The smell was gone. So was the old man.

  I sat frozen the rest of the ride, convinced I was losing my mind. When I finally reached my stop, I ran all the way home.

  That night, I barely slept. I kept hearing the screams—maybe from the lab. Maybe from the train.

  Maybe my own.

  By morning, I felt a little better.

  But the silence of the birds outside my window felt just a bit too still.

  I went back to work the next day.

  I told myself things would return to normal—that the episode had passed, and I could slip back into routine. The labs always helped with that. White walls, stainless counters, low ambient hum from the machines. Cool, quiet, clean. Just the way I liked it.

  Still, something felt off. Like the silence wasn’t….right.

  I was at my station, testing a poultry sample from Batch C-12. The tissue had the right coloration, maybe a little dense in the muscle fiber, but otherwise within expected range. I ran it through the scanner, watching the numbers flicker across the display. Nothing abnormal. Nothing wrong.

  So why did it smell faintly of iron?

  Dr. Vellin entered the lab mid-cycle. He moved like he always did—calm, efficient—but there was something heavier in his steps.

  He glanced at my screen, then over at me. “How are you feeling?”

  I didn’t look up. “Fine.”

  I kept my eyes on the data as he moved toward the sink. He rinsed a beaker, the sound sharp in the otherwise quiet room.

  “Any nausea? Disorientation?” he asked.

  “No. Just hungry.”

  A pause. I added, “It was stupid of me to taste the sample. I should’ve waited for clearance.”

  He didn’t respond at first. Just stood beside the sink, drying his hands slowly. Then he walked over and placed a hand on my shoulder. Not firm. Not comforting. Just… there.

  “There will come a time,” he said, “when this job becomes too much. You’ll have to decide if it’s still right for you.”

  I gave a quiet laugh. “It’s been years. I think I’m used to it by now.”

  He didn’t laugh. Just nodded. Slowly. Thoughtfully. Like he didn’t believe me.

  Then he turned and left the room without another word.

  I stood there for a while after he was gone. The sample sat under the scanner, still slowly rotating..

  I leaned in slightly, took a slow breath through my nose.

  There it was again. Faint, but undeniable. Iron. Sweat.

  I blinked. The numbers on the screen shifted slightly—almost like they had glitched. For half a second, the display showed a string of unfamiliar characters, then corrected itself.

  I shook my head, rubbed my eyes, and tapped the panel to rerun the scan.

  Everything looked fine.

  Perfect, even. And still… I didn’t feel right.

  It certainly started with the smells.

  Then the visions.

  Then the whispers….

  The next day, I went into the lab like nothing had happened. Dr. Vellin was out—he’d gone to the husbandry facility on the outskirts of town to collect fresh samples. I stayed behind, assigned to plant fiber analysis. A simple job. Cut. Examine. Log mutations. Watch for discoloration or irregular growth.

  The lab lights hummed softly. My gloves squeaked faintly against the cold surface of the table. Everything was routine.

  At lunch, I decided to step out. There was a little place down the street I liked—bright windows, quiet staff, always playing the same soft classical piano loop on the speakers.

  The wind outside was sharp. Our town isn’t known for gentleness when it comes to weather. It howled through the corridor streets, tugging at my coat and muffling my thoughts.

  That’s when I heard it.

  A whisper—soft, trembling.

  “Please… listen to me.”

  I stopped walking. Turned my head. Nothing. The sidewalk was empty, just wind and sunlight and the distant chirping of birds.

  I took a few steps forward. The sound returned, this time more desperate.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “Please… help me.”

  I froze.

  I looked around again—my heart starting to thump louder than the wind. There was no one. Not a soul on the street. Just storefronts. Glass. Stillness.

  But the whisper kept coming—closer, clearer, like it was circling me.

  “Please… please… I’m still here.”

  The world tilted slightly. The pavement rippled like a mirage. My head spun.

  “Is someone there?” I called out, voice trembling.

  A pause. Then, sharp and stunned:

  “You can hear me?”

  “I can—but I can’t see you. Where are you?”

  “I’m in front of you,” the voice said, hushed and urgent. “Reach out.”

  I looked down. I was standing in the middle of the street.

  No one in front of me.

  Nothing but wind.

  Still, I raised my hand and reached out—hesitant, slow, heart pounding.

  For the briefest moment, I felt it.

  Skin. Fingers. A trembling hand meeting mine in the empty air.

  Then a sharp honk shattered the moment.

  A car swerved around me, tires squealing. The world snapped back.

  The street was just a street. The hand was gone.

  The voice was gone.

  I staggered back to the sidewalk, breath shaky, sweat cold on my skin. I waited, hoping—dreading—it would return. But the only thing I heard was the wind and the birdsong,

  I didn’t go to lunch.

  I ran back to the lab and shut the door behind me.

  Sat in the dark storage room for almost an hour, staring at the walls.

  Something is wrong.

  Either I’m losing my mind…

  Or something isn’t right with the world around me.

  How do I figure this out?

  I don’t know when I started crying.

  It happened quietly—at first just a tightness in my chest, then tears falling onto my gloved hands. I crouched in the supply closet, surrounded by sealed containers and coiled tubing, the sterile scent of disinfectant thick in the air.

  But it wasn’t just the tears.

  It was the feeling.

  This place. The flickering fluorescent bulb. The grain of the metal wall pressing into my back.

  I’d been here before.

  The déjà vu came with a strange weight—like a memory I wasn’t supposed to have. Not like a dream. More like a scar. I pressed my palms into my eyes, trying to push the feeling away, but it clung to me.

  I reached for my phone. My hands were trembling.

  I wanted to call my parents. Hear a voice. Anchor myself to something real. But when I unlocked the screen and opened my contacts, I froze.

  I couldn’t remember their number.

  I scrolled down and found their name—MOTHER / FATHER—highlighted it, and called.

  No answer.

  Just a soft chime. Then silence.

  They’re probably busy, I told myself.

  But the unease only deepened.

  And then I remembered the smell.

  That first smell—the one that started it all. Faintly metallic. Organic. Familiar in a way that made my skin crawl.

  It had triggered something in me before. Images. Feelings. Panic.

  If I wanted to understand what was happening, I’d have to go back to it. Recreate it.

  The thought terrified me.

  But I stood. My legs were weak, my head foggy. I left the closet and returned to my workbench.

  The sample I’d been examining earlier—the plant fiber—was still there. Pale, rubbery, lined with veins. I cut a strip from the end, hesitated for just a second… then bit down.

  The texture was fibrous. Bitter. Wrong.

  I gagged, spat it into the waste bin, but I didn’t stop.

  I crossed the lab to the storage freezer, pulled out a slab of raw, unprocessed meat, and pressed it to my lips. I didn’t even know what it was. Maybe I didn’t want to know.

  I ate it anyway.

  The moment it hit my tongue, I doubled over. The taste was vile—salt, rot, something else I couldn’t name. My stomach turned. I vomited into the sink, body convulsing. Then the pain hit.

  Five minutes. Maybe more. My brain felt like it was being electrocuted from the inside out. Every nerve lit up. Every thought screamed. Visions poured in—like water through a broken dam.

  Visions. A bright white room. Screaming. Vellin’s voice. A cold needle in my neck.

  This has happened before.

  He was the one who put me under.

  And when I woke up, I’d forgotten.

  I collapsed to the floor, chest heaving, eyes blurred with tears.

  I didn’t understand any of it—not fully—but something in me had cracked.

  And then, just as suddenly, everything shifted.

  The lab lights dimmed. Or changed. Or maybe… something in my brain switched off.

  And the world that appeared around me…

  It was not the one I remembered.

  I stood up slowly, my legs still unsteady, my breath uneven.

  And then I saw it.

  The lab—once spotless, sterile, perfectly arranged—had transformed into a nightmare. The white tiles were smeared with dark stains. The sleek counters were rusted, covered in grime and decay. And the air—thick, suffocating—reeked of something foul. Something rotting.

  At first, I couldn’t move. My mind refused to process what I was seeing.

  There were body parts. Human body parts. Scattered across the floor like discarded scraps. Hands curled into fists. Feet still in slippers. Heads—misshapen, deformed—twitching with some residual nerve impulse. Eyes staring. Mouths slack.

  What is this?

  What is this place?

  I stumbled backward, nearly slipping in a pool of something thick and red-black. The scanner monitors buzzed faintly, flickering with unreadable symbols, their soft tones replaced by low, droning hums.

  And then—muffled screams.

  I turned toward the adjoining door, heart pounding, and rushed in.

  The next room was worse.

  It was a holding chamber—a place I had never entered before, or perhaps had never seen for what it really was. Rows of cages lined the walls. Inside them were bodies—some mangled, some twitching. Not animals. Not even close.

  They were human. Or had once been.

  Malformed, degraded, mutated beyond recognition, but still human. Faces twisted with pain and confusion, flesh discolored and stretched unnaturally over bone. One pressed itself against the bars as I passed, eyes wide, they followed me.

  I thought these creatures were protein samples.

  All this time, I thought we’d been working with engineered livestock—biomass, vat-grown tissue, re-cloned fauna. But these were people. Or something close enough that the distinction didn’t matter.

  Panic took over. I ran out of there.

  I burst out of the building and into the open street—and what I saw there made my stomach turn.

  The sky—once a bright pastel blue—was gone. Above me stretched a blanket of heavy grey clouds, dense and unmoving, smothering the world in lifeless light. The buildings were rusted skeletons of themselves, overgrown with brown, vein-like roots that crawled along their surfaces like cancer.

  The air stank of metal and mold.

  The streets, once full of neighbors and laughter, were nearly empty. The few people I saw wandered in slow, unnatural patterns, their skin a jaundiced yellow-gray. Their clothes were tattered. Their eyes hollow. They looked like ghosts trying to play house.

  I grabbed one by the arm, desperate. “What happened here?”

  She blinked slowly, confused. Then smiled and said,

  “Jeez, the wind’s strong today, huh?”

  She walked away like nothing had happened.

  Then I heard it. A shrill tone—an alarm. And a series of rapid clicks, like insects skittering.

  I looked up and saw them.

  Some type of drones. Dozens of them. Small, black, insectile. They hovered like birds, flapping with mechanical wings, chirping a familiar tune—the birdsong. The same birds I heard every morning.

  Except now, I could see them for what they were.

  They turned toward me.

  I didn’t wait. I ran.

  Back to the lab. Through the rusted doors. I shut them behind me, locked them, and collapsed to the floor.

  The drones stayed outside.

  Waiting.

  The silence returned.

  I stared at my shaking hands, and that’s when I noticed the color. My skin—no longer pink and smooth—was pale and grey-yellow. Thin. Wrinkled.

  I stumbled into the restroom and looked into the mirror.

  The face staring back wasn’t mine.

  Hair nearly gone. Eyes sunken deep into their sockets. My skin sagged like stretched wax, drawn thin across a skull that didn’t look fully alive. My lips trembled. My teeth were yellowed, some missing. I looked… ancient.

  Sick.

  And then some memories rushed back.

  This wasn’t the first time I had “woken up.”

  It wasn’t the first time I had remembered.

  I had seen the truth before.

  And someone had made me forget.

  That’s when I heard the voice behind me.

  “They told me you’ve awakened again.”

  I turned sharply. Dr. Vellin just stood a few feet away, also looking sickly in his unbuttoned coat, a calm expression on his face—as if this was nothing more than another day.

  “Dr. Vellin…” I could barely speak. “What’s happening? What’s happening to me?”

  He looked around the ruined lab, the scattered body parts, the bloodstained floor. Then his eyes drifted to the window, where the drones still hovered outside—silent, unmoving, watching.

  “Nothing is happening to you,” he said, almost casually.

  “Then what do they want?” I yelled, pointing toward the hovering machines.

  He stepped beside me and followed my gaze.

  “They can detect when someone no longer belongs,” he said quietly. “When an implant fails or goes dark. They’re not here to attack you… yet. Your implant isn’t completely offline—it’s malfunctioning. Which means you’re in between. Half-in, half-out. That’s why they’re waiting.”

  He turned back to me, then nodded toward the hallway.

  “Walk with me.”

  I hesitated—every instinct told me not to trust him. But I had no one else. No answers. And the truth was already tearing at me. So I followed him.

  We walked in silence through dim hallways, past corroded doors and flickering lights. The illusion was fully gone now. The facility looked like it had been abandoned for decades.

  Inside his office, he sat down with a sigh, as if we’d done this before.

  “You’re not the first to wake up, Elias,” he said. “We call it that—waking up—but really, your implant just glitched. Many do, eventually. The tech is advanced, but not perfect.”

  I stared at him, trying to comprehend everything at once.

  “It can override senses,” he continued. “Add smells, tastes, even filter what you see. But it can’t delete memory—not entirely. Over time, some of us become… resistant. Immune. And when that happens, the cracks start showing.”

  “Is our governing council,” I said. “It’s behind all this?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s not a person, Elias. It’s not some shadowy villain. It’s a system—an automation loop set in motion centuries ago by people who genuinely thought they were saving humanity. Our world has been dying for generations. The sky, the soil, the oceans—none of it can sustain us anymore. The implants were created to preserve our sanity. To make life… bearable.”

  I stared blankly. It was too much to absorb.

  “But the city…” I whispered. “Why does it look like this now?”

  “Because this,” he said, gesturing out the window, “is how it’s always looked. The sky has been gray for centuries. The streets rusted. The roots you see—those are invasive, mutated plant systems, engineered to absorb toxins from the air. There is no pristine world. Only the illusion of one.”

  “And the people outside the system?” I asked, breath catching. “The ones I saw?”

  “Some refused the implant. They were exiled, pushed out, or slipped through cracks. You’ve interacted with a few, without realizing it. The system does what it can to keep them out… but it’s far from perfect.”

  I stood in stunned silence.

  Then another thought hit me, sharp and sickening.

  “The mutants,” I said. “The… bodies. In the cages. What are they?”

  Dr. Vellin didn’t flinch. His voice was flat now. Cold.

  “Elias… all animals have been extinct for decades. Livestock, fish, birds. Gone. We had no other source of protein. The clones you’ve worked on—the samples you’ve tested—they’re human. Genetically altered. Cloned from discarded or ‘removed’ outsiders. That’s what we eat. That’s what keeps the city alive.”

  I staggered back, bile rising in my throat.

  “I didn’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t want to know…”

  He looked at me for a long time. Then said, “You did. Once.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, voice shaking. “Are you going to have me killed?”

  He leaned forward, elbows resting on his desk.

  “The first time you woke up, I panicked,” he admitted. “I put you under. Had your memories suppressed. It was easier that way. Cleaner. But I’ve come to realize… maybe that wasn’t fair to you.”

  He stood, walked slowly around the desk.

  “I’m giving you three choices.”

  I stared at him, not moving.

  “You can leave,” he said. “But you can’t stay in the city. And outside these walls, there’s nothing left—just starvation, disease, and dust.”

  He stepped closer.

  “Or… you can return to your work, knowing the truth. With your memories intact. Live with the weight.”

  A pause.

  “Or,” he said gently, “we can put you to “sleep.” Again. You’ll forget. The world will become beautiful again. And you’ll be happy.”

  I didn’t answer.

  I didn’t know if I could.

  The despair in my voice was visible—even to me.

  The blood.

  The crimes I’ve committed.

  The things I’ve eaten.

  The lies I’ve swallowed whole just to get by. The days I smiled, worked, laughed—while all of this festered behind a glass wall I didn’t even know was there.

  The grotesque truth of this reality has rotted through me.

  And now that I’ve seen it, fully, clearly, I know my mind can’t hold it.

  I want out.

  I want to forget.

  I don’t want this burden.

  It’s too much.

  But a thought slipped through, weak and trembling:

  What if I remember again?

  I turned to Dr. Vellin. My voice was barely a whisper. “What if it happens again? What if I wake up?”

  He looked down for a moment, then back at me.

  “You probably will,” he said gently. “We can suppress memory, Elias, but we can’t erase it. Not completely. Something might trigger it—maybe not tomorrow, maybe not for years. But eventually… it might come back.”

  I sat there, trembling.

  There was silence for a while. The kind that feels final.

  Then I looked up at him. “Can I ask you for something?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Anything.”

  “I want to make a video. One I can leave behind—for myself. If I wake up again, if I remember again… I’d rather hear it all from me. Not you. Not anyone else.”

  He gave me the approval.

  And that’s why you’re seeing this, Elias.

  Because you’ve awakened again.

  I don’t know how many times it’s been. Two? Five? Ten? Maybe more. But every time you come back, it feels like the first. Every time, the pain is the same. Every time, the truth feels unbearable.

  And still, here you are.

  You have the same choice I did. We did.

  You can keep working. You can keep helping to feed the society that depends on you—on us. You’ll live with the truth, carry its weight like I did. Maybe you’ll last longer this time. Maybe you won’t.

  Or…

  You can forget.

  We’ll put you under again. Reset the loop. Wake up to birdsong, sunshine, soft grass, and clean glass.

  Or you can run. But there’s nothing out there for you. Just ash and rust.

  The choice is always yours.

  And for what it’s worth…

  I understand.

  I really do, because I am you.

  So, Good luck this time round, Elias.